Rooted
by LadyDivine91
Summary: There's a beautiful tradition to carry around a plant when you travel, to remind you where you came from. Where home is. The first Christmas Aziraphale spends at Crowley's flat, he realizes that Crowley has been carrying a plant with him all along. Aziraphale thinks it roots Crowley to home. But home isn't necessarily a place. Sometimes, it's a person. Or in this case ... an angel.


_**Notes:**_

_**Written for Drawlight's '31 Days of Ineffables' prompt 'pine'.**_

"Oh, Crowley! What a _magnificent_ Christmas tree!" Aziraphale effuses, ambling about the base of Crowley's tall, lush tree as the demon takes his coat and hangs it up for him. "These branches! They're so _unusual_!" Aziraphale reaches out a hand but doesn't dare touch, no matter how alluring the fluffy, fanned foliage covered in red and gold tinsel may be. "I don't think I've ever seen one like it!"

"You have," Crowley says matter-of-factly, dropping onto his sofa and leaving Aziraphale to admire. Aziraphale peeks curiously back at the demon draped over the far corner of his sofa per usual, but more sullen than any being should be around Christmas. With his glasses on, Aziraphale can only guess the direction of his gaze, but he seems to be looking at the tree _and_ Aziraphale at the same time. _Because I'm in the way_, Aziraphale deduces. And yet … "Humans call it Wollemia," Crowley explains, "but it's had many names throughout the centuries. It's one of the oldest trees on the planet."

"I see …" Aziraphale waits for something more – an explanation hopefully. When he doesn't get one, he shelves his concern for the moment and goes back to examining the tree. It isn't a traditional pine tree – not one that Aziraphale recognizes.

But he _does_.

He _does_ recognize it.

He recognizes it in a peculiar way - the way one recognizes a face or a street name or the lyric of a song one's only heard in a dream.

Aziraphale leans closer and breathes in. It smells warm, but Crowley's flat is uncharacteristically warm tonight – a fire blazing in a fireplace Aziraphale didn't know Crowley had. And candles burning, each releasing a fragrance attributed to Christmas – cranberry, cloves, cinnamon, mulling spices. Crowley doesn't often light candles in his flat, not to mention _scented_ ones.

He lit those for Aziraphale. To make him feel at home.

The thought behind that gesture makes Aziraphale giddy.

He switches spots and leans in again, glancing down through the branches to get a bird's eye view of the intricate ornaments hanging. He spots something interesting at the way bottom of the tree and crouches to get a better look.

It looks like soil – rich and dark.

A tongue of fire rises high in the fireplace and Aziraphale sees more clearly. The tree isn't in a stand. It's in a _pot_. A humongous clay pot filled with dirt and covered by a red velvet tree skirt. Crowley's Christmas tree isn't just real.

It's _alive_.

A part of Crowley's stable of plants.

Suddenly, it hits Aziraphale where he's seen it before. Well, not the tree in its entirety, but cuttings from it – a sprig here and there in a buttonhole, an arrangement, a vase. Crowley keeps a bud vase in his car with a shoot from this tree in it. Aziraphale doesn't pay it much mind because when he's riding in Crowley's car he's usually fearing for his life and the lives of others. But it's there.

"This tree," he mulls aloud but he knows Crowley can hear. "You carry pieces of it around with you. Don't you?" He turns to face Crowley fully. Crowley doesn't answer. "How many have you had?"

"Just this one."

"That … it's the same tree?"

"Yup."

"And you've been carrying it around for …?"

"Ever since I left the Garden."

"That long?" Aziraphale gasps. "I've heard of that!" He exclaims, blue eyes bright with firelight. "It's a beautiful human custom – carrying around a plant to remember where you came from … oh …" He blanches, the twinkling lights of the tree supplying color to his face "… I guess … _you_ came up with that."

"We sort of came up with it independent of one another. It's not really something I go around advertising."

A rosy glow returns to Aziraphale's cheeks. He smiles, slow and long, like he's come to a grand conclusion, a theory he's suspected true all along. "I knew it!"

"Knew _what_?"

"You miss Heaven, you sentimental old fool!"

Crowley rolls his eyes. Even with his glasses on, it's unmistakable as it moves his entire head. "If you remember correctly, Eden wasn't in Heaven. It was on Earth."

"Yes, but it _represents_ Heaven, doesn't it? Paradise?"

Crowley scoffs. "Not to me it doesn't."

"Carrying a plant with you everywhere you go roots you to home."

"True."

"And since that plant came from Eden …"

"No, angel," Crowley says. Agitated, he sits up. "Not rooted to Eden. Not rooted to Heaven." He sighs. It sounds painful. Sad. "Rooted to _you_."

Aziraphale falls silent, his conceit slipping away. "Rooted to _me_?"

"Yes."

"But I … I've never owned a tree."

"The day I left the garden, the day we left each other, you were standing under this tree." Crowley chuffs, shakes his head, looking left and right for a possible bottle of alcohol. "Be just like you to miss that detail. Ignoring a whole huge ass tree!"

"Well … w-why should I pay attention to what damned tree I was standing under!?" Aziraphale stammers. "You were leaving me! I was only looking at you!"

A blink of his eyes and Aziraphale is transported to that day.

After the rain, he and Crowley – Crawly back then – had decided to tour the garden and talk, ponder what the Almighty had planned for Aziraphale now that Adam and Eve had been banished.

Neither angel nor demon knew that She would come looking for Her Guardian of the Eastern Gate so soon.

She wasn't too happy to find a demon in Her garden.

Lightning flashed. Thunder bellowed. A warning, a _clear_ one.

Crawly knew he should leave.

He transformed back into a serpent, burrowed into the ground, and left.

He didn't even say goodbye.

"I didn't go far," Crowley admits. "I waited until the storm died down, then I snuck back in - returned to that same spot looking for you. Like an idiot, I thought you'd be there. But you weren't. The Garden was disappearing. I didn't have much time to look for you. I wanted something to remember you by. So I grabbed a piece of the tree and left. A root piece. Put it in dirt, wrapped it in a piece of my robe, and I've kept it. I guess you can say it was the start of my hobby but … it was more than that. It was a way of keeping you close to me."

Aziraphale's bottom jaw drops open. "I … I can't believe you did that."

"Believe it, angel. At the time, I thought …" Crowley looks at his hands, wishing to Someone there was a glass of wine in them "… well, I thought it would do _something_. Help me find you. I don't know."

"That's actually rather sweet."

Crowley slumps into the sofa cushion, disgusted with himself. "Shut it."

"I always imagined _I_ would be the hopeless romantic."

Crowley smirks. "You are. That's why you fell in love with me."

"How do you figure?" Aziraphale crosses the living room, joins Crowley on the sofa.

"A requirement for being a hopeless romantic is getting involved with the absolute wrong lover, making your relationship ultimately doomed to failure."

"Then I take it back." Aziraphale leans into Crowley's side. Crowley's arm finds his shoulders and rests there, pulling him closer.

"Why?" he asks.

"Because I don't believe for a moment that you're the wrong _anything_. And after 6000 years, I don't think we're doomed." Aziraphale gazes at the tree, at the brilliance of it – the twinkling lights, the sparkling glass ornaments, the star on top. He had no idea Crowley cared about things like Christmas trees or candles or romantic gestures. Well … save once. But apparently they've been inside of him all along. And now, Aziraphale gets to share in them. And as much as he'd normally prefer to be alone in his bookshop, he can't imagine being anywhere else _with_ anyone else now that they officially have one another. "I think we're succeeding marvelously."


End file.
